


In Nomine Dei

by Diatharna_Thoron



Category: Demon's Souls
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Dark Fantasy, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Major Character Injury, Mental Instability, Minor Character Death, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:14:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23895169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diatharna_Thoron/pseuds/Diatharna_Thoron
Summary: Alvira, a Knight of the Temple of God, travels to Boletaria to aid the kingdom after receiving news of the demon's siege from an unknown traveler. Rated M for dark themes and graphic depictions of violence.
Relationships: Original Female Character(s)/Ostrava of Boletaria
Kudos: 7





	1. Prologue: The Revival of the Soul Arts

The Nexus sits in a void, suspended within time and space, separate from the world of the living. Here, the Monumentals have presided, holding together the fabric of reality since the first scourge of the Old One, awakened by mortals using Soul Arts. 

Rampant and hungry for the souls of the living, the Old One had unleashed a near unstoppable force of soul-stealing demons to feed an insatiable hunger that ultimately could not be quenched. A thick fog enveloped the land as the once lively and robust countries turned to smoldering ruin, leaving no-one left to maintain them.

The Old One’s demons stole the souls of everyone in their wake. Those who survived their onslaughts were driven mad with a want that was not understood, wreaking havoc on the sane and inadvertently assisting the demons to their own ends. As the Old One and its demons devoured souls, the more powerful they became. There was not a force alive that could match their strength and animosity. All seemed lost.

Then arose many strong and capable heroes. They united together, and through their power, the Old One’s demons were defeated. The Old One itself was laid to sleep beneath the veils of the Nexus. But though the battle had been won, it had come at a high price: all the souls lost to the Old One and its demons were irretrievable, and half of the world now lay submerged beneath the deep, colorless fog, forever lost. 

The warriors that survived the battle with the Old One became Monumentals, half-living sentinels of the fabric of reality. The Monumentals banned the use of Soul Arts to prevent the Old One from awakening again.

Even after the Old One had been lain to slumber, the effects of its awakening did not go unnoticed. Time and space began to tear, and oddities were seen around the globe. People recalled seeing others from different times before their very eyes, only for them to shimmer away into a silver mist a short time later. The souls of the slain not taken by the Old One wavered in and out of the planes of the living and the dead, though very few interacted with or noticed their bewildered, living onlookers. Odd weather patterns were noted: it would snow in the middle of summer, or a violent tornado would crash through an unsuspecting farmer’s field during a sunny, cloudless day.

People soon found that there were weak spots in the dimensions in which others would seem to slip through and never return. Some went mad, their eyes glazed over, spouting nonsense of a void and a god within that could “save the world.” One such man went on a violent tirade, attacking the sane and swearing that he had been to the void and seen this god, saying that He must awaken. He then abruptly slit his own throat, ending his life.

The Monumentals came together once more, harnessing their power to repair the damage that the Old One had inflicted upon the world. Slowly the earth was mended, and these strange phenomena ceased.

As time went on and generations passed, the terror and ruin wrought by the Old One faded from consciousness, as did the heroic actions of the Monumentals, even as they continued to weave the fabric of space and time into continuous balance. The Monumentals’ dedication to the mortal race of men never wavered even as they were forgotten.

~*~*~

Many ages passed through the world in peace and harmony. The Soul Arts were a distant memory scarcely recalled, but for a morose king wholly pessimistic in the views of his kingdom. King Allant XII of Boletaria was a successful ruler in every sense. His military might was yet to be matched, the kingdom was rich and trade was booming, and Boletaria’s citizens were happy. They worshipped and revered the king as a god among men. Yet still he felt empty; he wanted more for his kingdom... and for himself.

The Old King began sifting through Boletaria’s vast libraries in search of answers. For years his search yielded nothing, and in this time the king became more frustrated and cynical as he was not getting any younger. However, one fateful morning, as the king was perusing the upper shelves near the back of the library, his hand brushed against an ancient tome. He gingerly opened the book, carefully turning each page, mindful to keep them in place as many of them were loose and broken. As his eyes scanned the pages, he grinned to himself. This may have been exactly what he was looking for all along.

He swiftly returned to his throne room, ordering his guards to close the doors and to not allow for any visitors. He sat on his throne, book in hand, and began to slowly read through the pages. Minutes turned to hours; hours turned to days. It was only until one of his guards sought him out that he realized he had not eaten or slept since he had returned from the library. But now he knew everything that he needed to know. As he rose from his throne, book in hand, and followed his guard out of the throne room to his private chambers, a world of possibilities swirled in his head. He had found the key that would make his kingdom the greatest the world had ever known and ever would be. They would be powerful beyond comprehension, and he, by extension, a king among kings. No… a god among kings.

As the Old King lay himself down for the night, machinations of his new empire churning in his mind, he felt content for the first time in decades. He reached over to his bedside table and patted the old tome lovingly before turning over, muttering quietly before falling into a deep, restful slumber.

_“Soul Arts…”_


	2. Of Demons and Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alvira meets Ostrava and assists him in his time of need.

Alvira sat alone on second floor of the Nexus, eyes transfixed on the demon's soul floating eerily above her ethereal hands. Her armored feet dangled precariously off the edge, but she paid no mind to how high above the bottom floor she was. It mattered not if she fell, for she was already dead. She was a soul without a body, encased in her cold, silver armor, no longer physically feeling. She had been bound to the Nexus by the Monumental the first time she had died. It was not true immortality, for she could still be killed, but the binding would assure that her soul was not taken and that she could keep fighting. So that she could keep collecting souls.

The chaotic energy dancing in front of her eyes bespoke an immense power, and that power called to her, whispering promises of yet more to come…

She knew those promises to be true. The creature she had fought to obtain this soul had been a mighty one. It was known as the Phalanx. She recalled its grotesque form: a large, gelatinous, blob-like entity with a brightly glowing core. It had many smaller likenesses of itself surrounding it, guarding its body with heavy shields. Each of the smaller ones were armed with spears, making approaching the thing for a close combat assault a difficult task. The lead demon also held a massive, spiked spear used for scraping and destroying armor. There was no way that she could get in close to find any weaknesses without being shredded to pieces. Using her bow proved equally fruitless as her arrows simply bounced off their shields; the few that did manage to bypass their defenses had little effect.

It had all seemed hopeless. The demon was immune to everything in her arsenal. It was slowly encroaching upon her, backing her into a corner. She held up her halberd in a defensive position and squeezed the handle tight. Then, all at once, a group of spears thrust forward towards her, forcing her to evade to the side at the last moment. They impacted with the wall, knocking one of the torches loose. It rolled towards the Phalanx and the creature noticeably recoiled from it until it sputtered and died on the ground.  
'Of course!' Alvira thought to herself. 'Fire! Why had I not thought of that before?'

She hastily foraged around in her pocket and produced a small oil casc capped with a cloth plug. Then she grabbed one of the nearby torches off the wall, lit the casc, and hurled it in the direction of the demon. It hit its mark and set the demon's grunts ablaze. Many of them scattered and some altogether dissolved into a murky puddle. Eureka! Now she had exposed a weakness in the demon's guard and knew how to adequately deal with the thing. Only now she had upset the demon and it was advancing upon her with a gurgling hiss.

Alvira yanked her bow out of its sling, pulled another oil casc from her pocket, and began ripping small strips of cloth from her armor. She swiftly and expertly wrapped the pieces of cloth around the tips of her arrows and dipped them in the casc. Using the torch she had collected earlier, she lit the arrows and began to pelt the Phalanx's unprotected flesh. Still the creature continued to charge mindlessly, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was being burned alive. It made an odd, purling sound and threw its spear in Alvira's direction, missing only by a hair as she loosed her last shot into the very core of the demon's body. A bright light flashed, and the demon began to shriek; Alvira closed her eyes and clutched her ears as the sound of the demon's dying cry pierced them. An explosion of fire erupted, sending her flying backwards into a pillar as the demon writhed its last frantic throes before finally dying in a brilliant flash of white.

Once she was finally able to stand again, Alvira walked unsteadily over to the charred remnants of the Phalanx's corpse. Inside a light still burned brightly, and she felt somehow drawn to it. She reached for it but halted when the light snaked towards her and coalesced in her palm, its gleaming a stark contrast to the now blackened corridor. Not knowing what to do next, she returned to the Nexus.

She was still looking into the soul of the demon when the sound of light footsteps shook her out of her reminiscing. Behind her stood the Maiden in Black, lighting a candle above her own head. She paused to gaze down towards Alvira, though she saw nothing. The Maiden was a short, frail woman, wrapped in a strange silken black cloth. Her ink-black hair flowed down to her upper back and was tied haphazardly into a half-braid. However, her strangest feature was her eyes: they were blocked with wax and sewn tightly shut for good measure, making her completely unseeing. Yet when the Maiden looked at her, she felt that she could not only see her, but within her… through her. Despite it all, Alvira found that her presence was oddly comforting, like that of a mother.  
Alvira looked back down towards the soul and frowned. It flickered brightly in her hands as she stroked it. Its evil essence unnerved her.

"Thou hast questions," the Maiden spoke softly in her strange, foreign accent.

"Yes," Alvira replied, holding the soul in one hand and rising to her feet. Her voice echoed softly around her as it was no longer contained by her form. She offered the soul to the Maiden, hoping that she would be able to tell what it was.  
"I feel a change in me," Alvira began. "I hear whispers, but not in my head. I feel them… in my soul. In my very being. But the whispers are not mine."

The Maiden in Black cocked her head. "Thou hast slain the living and the demons they protect. The souls of the dead now dwell in thee."

Alvira shivered. "Why must I gather these souls? Why can I not simply set them free?"

"If thou dost not take them, the Old One will," the Maiden replied sadly. "Come now. Come closer."

Alvira did as told, and the Maiden bade her kneel before her. The Maiden gently placed a hand on her head and dropped her staff to the side. A gentle, silent wind seemed to encircle them as she began to speak:

_Soul of the mind, key to life's ether._

_Soul of the lost, withdrawn from its vessel._

_Let strength be granted, so the world might be mended._

_So the world might be mended… ___

____

____

The demon's soul that Alvira had been holding out to the Maiden began to shimmer and fade. She felt both body and soul being invigorated, becoming stronger, as she lost herself in the Maiden's slow chanting. Alvira closed her eyes and savored the feeling. As the soul of the demon imbibed her, she felt her physical senses returning. Slowly she began to breathe again, and her heart started a slow and steady rhythm inside her chest. She could feel once more the cloth, leather, and plate that made up her armor. She opened her eyes again and clenched and unclenched her fist, relishing in the return of her flesh and silently thanking God for the blessing of body once more.  
After a short time, the Maiden withdrew her hand, and the rush of power that she had felt left with it. She did, however, feel another change within herself. She felt stronger. More capable. The warrior grabbed the halberd that had been laying at her side and rose. She looked to the Maiden again, and in her upturned palm she held a faintly shining crystal dangling from a thin, flaxen thread. The woman was offering this to her, Alvira realized, and she gingerly took the odd ornament from her hand, studying it carefully. It was a very dark green, almost black, and the light within was dim. There seemed to be nothing particularly special about it. Alvira looked to the Maiden skeptically, and, sensing the question that had not yet passed her lips, she answered, "A house for thine souls, and to guide thee when all has become dark."  
Understanding, Alvira nodded and tied the augite to her belt, and without another word to the Maiden, turned away with determined strides.

~*~*~

Ostrava dipped into a destroyed archway still covering a small portion of the open bridge leading up to Boletaria's keep. He was out of breath and quickly running out of energy. It felt like he had been running for hours. Luck seemed to be on his side, though; it looked as if he had finally given the drake the slip. The flying monstrosity was nowhere to be seen.

He sunk down to his knees and let his ornamental sword and shield hit the pavement with a quiet ting. He feared to stay in one place for long, lest more of the soul-starved come chasing after him. The whole time he'd been in Boletaria since his return had been nothing but running for his life from madmen and demons alike.

"What has happened to my beloved Boletaria? My home?" he breathed into his palm. But he didn't have time to lament for long; the roaring of the drake could be heard up in the sky and soon the large beast landed behind him, greeting him with an ear-shattering wail. Ostrava cried out in horror as the drake let loose a volley of fire from its maw, just missing him as he dove off to the side. He quickly got to his feet, grabbed his sword and shield, and ran down the bridge away from the drake. It knocked down the remnants of the stone archway in its pursuit, leaving fire in its wake as it chased the steel-clad knight, easily keeping pace with him.

~*~*~

"God, help me!" Alvira heard a voice yelling in the near distance as she dislodged her halberd from the back of a dead soldier. She hurried towards the voice, barely dodging obstacles as she passed them to reach the source of distress. When she arrived, she found a man trapped between a giant red drake and a wall of wooden barricades. Alvira frantically shifted her eyes from left to right, and to her relief, found a staircase leading up to the top of the archway above the drake.

She pounded up the stairs, unlatching the bow from its sling as she went. When she got to the top, the drake reared its head up, ready to breathe another wave of fire at the defenseless knight. Her arrow was ready and aimed at the drake's head. She heard the knight scream just as the drake opened its mouth to release. Yet it was not fire that spewed from its jaws, but a pain-filled shriek. The arrow that Alvira let loose had hit the drake directly in the eye. The beast clawed at the arrow with its hind leg, whirling around in a frenzy and shattering the wooden barricades with its spiked tail. It spewed fire angrily into the sky as it took flight, gliding crookedly as it disappeared beyond a nearby hill.

Alvira ran back down the stairs to the knight, now lying face down in a pile of planks and shattered wood. He rose to his arms and knees, shaking his head slightly as if he could not believe that he was still alive. She reached down to help the knight stand and eventually he was able to balance himself against the wall for support.

"Thank you," the knight said breathlessly. "I would not have made it had you not assisted me."

Alvira nodded. "Are you going to be all right?" she asked concernedly.

"I will manage." He finally found the strength to stand up straight and examined the woman closely. Her armor was plated and polished silver and had an intricate gold carving of a tree surrounded by runes on the breastplate. Her helmet's visor completely hid her face, save for some very inconspicuous eye sockets near its crown, which flared out in the shape of a tree and was decorated thusly with carved leaves and branches. Rich, blue velvet cloth trimmed with silver flowed from her waistline and covered her legs, although the cloth had been unfortunately torn in many places. Her legs were protected with heavy silver greaves adorned with gold carvings similar to her breastplate. Ostrava also noted that she was fairly short, the top of her head only managing to reach the bottom of his chin.

After taking a moment to reconcile himself, Ostrava held out his hand, offering it to her. "My name is Ostrava," he said. "And you are…?"

Alvira returned the gesture and shook the knight's hand. "My name is Alvira. I'm a Temple Knight of the Church."

"A Temple Knight?" he exclaimed. "What are you doing all the way out here?"  
"I am a demon slayer," she replied. "I could ask you the very same. There aren't many sane folk out this way."

Ostrava fidgeted slightly and bowed his head, unable to keep eye contact with her any longer. "Let us just say that I am looking for someone and leave it at that," he murmured.

"As you wish. I wouldn't want to pry in your business."

Ostrava eyed the bridge where the drake had been trailing him warily. He noted the charred remains of soldiers and blockades churning enough smoke up into the sky to make seeing across to the other side difficult. The drake had single-handedly wiped out any resistance he would have faced on this bridge's side, and thanks to this demon slayer, the creature had not done him in.

I should be safe for a while, at least, he thought to himself. Then, a shaky sigh escaped him as he conjured images of what lied in wait ahead. He briefly considered asking the woman if she would allow him to accompany her. Ostrava knew he was not much of a fighter himself. Having a traveling companion would dramatically improve the odds of his success.

He was startled out of his thoughts at the sound of shifting wood and the clanking of armor as Alvira started to turn away. "Wait!" he shouted, a bit too loudly. He felt his face turn red and rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. Thank God for this helmet…

Alvira turned back to Ostrava and raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

All was quiet for a moment as Ostrava contemplated what he would say next. On one hand, having a traveling companion would be useful, and this woman clearly knew how to fight. However, on the other hand, would he be able to trust her with the task that he was undertaking? He had only just met her, and he had his doubts. Perhaps she would not take him seriously, or worse, she would take advantage of his weakness. 'No,' he determined. 'She may have saved me, but I cannot have the expectation that this would work. I am being naïve.'

"I merely wanted to wish you the best of luck on your journey before you depart," he said at last to break the uncomfortable silence that was settling around them. "May God be with you." He put his hands together in prayer and closed his eyes. "Umbasa."  
Alvira beamed and returned the gesture, slightly bowing to him as she did so. "Umbasa."

Yet, as Alvira turned and continued on her way, Ostrava began to have second thoughts.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted to FanFiction.net. The updated version can be found here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13357982/1/In-Nomine-Dei


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